In recent years, wireless communication devices, such as cellular phones, have continued to offer an ever increasing amount of features to users, along with improved performance and computing power, while the overall size of the devices has continued to decrease. One important type of component found in such devices is referred to as “passive electronic components,” including capacitors, resistors, and inductors. Often, these components work together to perform various electronic functions such as harmonic filtering, decoupling, impedance matching, and switching.
In years past, discrete passive electronic components were used in wireless communication devices and mounted to the various circuit boards and substrates within (i.e., “surface mount devices”). However, as performance demands continue to increase, while the overall size of the devices decreases, it is becoming increasingly difficult to fit all of the desired components into a single wireless device.
In recent years, integrated passive devices (IPDs) have been developed, in which the passive electronic components are formed directly onto substrates (e.g., wafers or microelectronic die), sometimes in conjunction with active electronic components, such as transistors. However, in order to optimize performance, IPDs are typically formed on relatively high resistivity substrates, such as those made of gallium arsenide, glass, quartz, or sapphire, as opposed to silicon, which is generally considered to have too low of a resistivity to be used in IPDs for wireless communication devices.
One problem associated with forming IPDs on such high resistivity substrates is that these materials are considerably more expensive than silicon. Additionally, the manufacturing tools and processes used to form integrated circuits (e.g., complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) processing) on silicon substrates must be modified in order to use gallium arsenide, glass, quartz, or sapphire substrates, which further increases manufacturing costs, as well as production time.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a method for manufacturing IPDs on less expensive substrates, such as silicon, while providing a substrate with a suitable resistivity for use in wireless communication devices. Additionally, it is desirable to provide a method for manufacturing IPDs that utilizes the same processing tools and similar steps used to form integrated circuits with active electronic components. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.